Ben Bostick
Columbia University · American Language Program
Active 1982–2024
About
Ben Bostick is a Lecturer in Sustainability Science and an Associate Research Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. His research focuses on environmental processes at the molecular scale, studying the chemical, biological, and physical processes that occur in environmental systems, often at the scale of atoms and molecules. His work aims to understand fundamental chemical reactions that influence water quality, soil fertility, and pollutant levels across environmental systems, with particular attention to redox processes and adsorption. His active projects examine trace elements such as arsenic, uranium, tungsten in soils and groundwater, and the utilization of iron in the ocean. Dr. Bostick's research extends beyond understanding environmental chemistry to developing scientifically sound solutions that address environmental issues. His group works on scaling local geochemical observations to landscape and larger scales using environmental measurements, conceptual and computational models, machine learning, and statistics. This approach is relevant to public health by improving understanding of environmental exposures, mitigation strategies, and predictions of future water, soil, and air quality. His work involves community and student-led research projects in NYC and other nearby communities, as well as international collaborations across several countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Australia, Antarctica, Patagonia, and China. His research also seeks to address inequities in environmental exposures and impacts across urban and rural communities, such as improving water quality in Indigenous communities in the US and urban air pollution exposure.
Research topics
- Paleontology
- Chemistry
- Geology
- Ecology
- Geochemistry
- Environmental science
- Mineralogy
- Environmental chemistry
- Oceanography
- Geotechnical engineering
Selected publications
Minerals · 2023 · 4 citations
- Geology
- Mineralogy
- Geochemistry
The K/Ar chronology of glauconite pellets is a long-used method for directly dating marine sedimentary deposits. Many papers have explored the processes that form glauconite and the factors that lead to greater reliability in the ages. Although K/Ar ages of glauconite are generally in agreement with other measures of stratigraphic age, there are examples of occurrences with ages too old and examples with ages too young. This paper seeks to build on the accumulated knowledge of glauconite, using synchrotron radiation to non-destructively characterize individual pellets and then consecutively measure the argon and potassium to obtain a K/Ar age. This strategy provides the advantage of measurements on a single aliquot while avoiding recoil loss of 40Ar in the nuclear reactor during irradiation for 40Ar/39Ar dating. We have used the glauconite reference material GL-O-1 to showcase several non-destructive methods for evaluating the maturity of individual pellets. In our argon measurements, we have found that the radiogenic argon concentration of large bulk samples underestimates the values for individual visually mature pellets, and we determined a K/Ar age of 101.0 ± 0.3 Ma (1σ SEM), M.S.W.D. 0.54 from 15 of 16 visually mature individual pellets. This age is 6% older than the reference value of 95.03 ± 1.11 Ma (1σ), and it is in good agreement with constraints from the U-Pb dating of volcanic minerals near the Albian–Cenomanian boundary.
Arsenic contamination of Bangladesh aquifers exacerbated by clay layers
Nature Communications · 2020 · 104 citations
- Geology
- Environmental science
- Environmental chemistry
Confining clay layers typically protect groundwater aquifers against downward intrusion of contaminants. In the context of groundwater arsenic in Bangladesh, we challenge this notion here by showing that organic carbon drawn from a clay layer into a low-arsenic pre-Holocene (>12 kyr-old) aquifer promotes the reductive dissolution of iron oxides and the release of arsenic. The finding explains a steady rise in arsenic concentrations in a pre-Holocene aquifer below such a clay layer and the repeated failure of a structurally sound community well. Tritium measurements indicate that groundwater from the affected depth interval (40-50 m) was recharged >60 years ago. Deeper (55-65 m) groundwater in the same pre-Holocene aquifer was recharged only 10-50 years ago but is still low in arsenic. Proximity to a confining clay layer that expels organic carbon as an indirect response to groundwater pumping, rather than directly accelerated recharge, caused arsenic contamination of this pre-Holocene aquifer.
Recent grants
NSF · $360k · 2013–2017
NSF · $858k · 2023–2026
NSF · $332k · 2015–2018
Frequent coauthors
- 165 shared
Alexander van Geen
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
- 95 shared
Brian J. Mailloux
- 90 shared
Jing Sun
Chinese Academy of Sciences
- 85 shared
Sarah Nicholas
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
- 83 shared
Paul Northrup
Stony Brook University
- 81 shared
Benjamin S. Twining
- 81 shared
Colleen Hoffman
National Energy Technology Laboratory
- 81 shared
Alessandra C. Leri
Marymount Manhattan College
Education
- 2002
PhD, Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences
Stanford University
- 1998
Ms Soil Chemistry, Soil Science
University of Idaho
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